Southern California’s blue skies and sunshine may not bring whitewater kayaking to thr forefronteveryone’s mind. There are, however, dedicated paddlers on campus who seek out places to go kayaking around the Inland Empire and beyond.

One such person is Freshman Will Downing. Downing began his paddling career five years ago at summer camp. “It was a three week wilderness trip: we camped on an island in a lake and kayaked across the lake to the river each day, carried up the river, and kayaked down,” explained Downing. “Since then I have kayaked between 120-150 days a year.”

Many of these days were spent on the water in hid homestate of Maine, which is a whitewater hotbed. Downing’s passion for paddling has led him to rivers all over New England, Tennessee, Canada, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.

Downing is looking forward to braving the California whitewater. “The whitewater kayaking in California is some of the finest in the world,” he says. “The rivers are primarily glacier fed, and flow through granite canyons. Important recreational watersheds include the American Watershed, near Sacramento, and the Kern Watershed, near Bakersfield. The difficulties range from Class I (easy) to Class V+, some of the most extreme kayaking being done today.”

Since kayaking is a large part of his life at home, Downing hopes to be able to continue paddling at Pomona. “The kayaking community is primarily in the northern part of the state, but that said, there is a dedicated group of people in the area here, as well as a couple here on the Claremont campuses,” said Downing.

With the proper equipment, whitewater kayaking can be done year-round in California. Since the rivers are fed by glacier melt, the best time to run rivers is after winter. With all of the water flow, the steep canyons of Southern California spawn spectacular and challenging creeks.

There are three main disciplines of whitewater kayaking. Playboating, also known as “freestyle,” involves short boats ranging from six to seven feet. Playboaters can execute acrobatic moves in waves and hydraulics. Typically, whitewater kayaking competitions are playboating competitions. Playboaters can maneuver their boats into complicated inversions and flips to do cutting edge tricks in the air, and in eight to twelve foot waves.

The second discipline is steep-creeking, which uses larger boats (eight to ten feet) to negotiate vertical rivers, including waterfalls, slides, and steep drops. Downing believes that this is the most exciting type of kayaking to watch, and also the most dangerous.

Surf Kayaking uses two types of boats – playboats and surf specific boats that have hulls modeled off of surfboards. The playboats are used to execute aerial moves while surf kayaking. The surf specific boats are designed for speed and carving.

Southern California and the Inland Empire do not boast many prime locales for whitewater kayaking. If traveling to Northern California is not an option, the Kern Watershed is only two hours away. The Kern is good for calm, expedition boating. Other Southern California spots include the Santa Ana River, north of Redlands; the San Gabriel River in the Angeles National Forest, just north of Los Angeles; Sespe Creek in Ojai; the Santa Clara River in Ventura County; Middle Piru Creek in Piru; and the Santa Margarita River in the Temecula Canyon near Riverside; each of which can be reached by car from Claremont in under two hours. The rivers in the Kern Watershed are best run in late spring or early summer; the other rivers are at optimum levels after heavy winter storms.

Downing plans to organize some rolling clinics, and perhaps lead whitewater kayaking trips later in the year. On The Loose, the five-College outdoors club, does not have paddling equipment at this time. If you are interested in starting a whitewater kayaking sub-section of O.T.L., contact the coordinators. Gear can be purchased or rented at REI in Arcadia at (626) 447-1062.